on Planet Where Everyone Can Teleport the first person on the moon went there by accident and promptly died. The next dozen or so people also went by accident, and also died. Number 14 figured out that people who go to the moon die and very cleverly brought a sword and six weeks of travel rations. This did not help.
No one on Planet Where Everyone Can Teleport ever figured out why people die in space because they don’t need airplanes and never found it particularly interesting to climb tall mountains. Astronomers use telescopes to take pictures of the ever-growing pile of corpses on the moon.
“why don’t they teleport back” because they’re not on the planet where everyone can teleport anymore. try to keep up dumbass
Humans have been around for a long time. They’ve been able to see the moon every night since they had eyes and brains. Presume they’ve also always been able to teleport.
There have always been stories of the Ones Who Don’t Come Back. There have always been those who looked at the moon and thought, there. Some cultures know about the sea (and how to dive down to harvest food) and how you have to hold your breath so there are ancient cultures who have stories of the Woman Who Held Her Breath and Saw The Moon.
Some say she was able to return and gasped out a few words before she died (pressure). Other stories say she told the whole story, others say she managed one word (the old stories differ on what that one word was.)
The idea that “no one ever bothered to go up mountains” ignores all the people who will do something just because, or in search of food, or to make maps so people know where to teleport to and which places to avoid (scary animals, no air).
All those people who start to develop ways to survive longer underwater would also try those things to pop over to the moon and eventually they would get it right. Rightish.
Also, how many teleporting pre-teens and teenagers who demonstrably have less ability to make judgements about their abilities and also have no fear and dare each other to do things would end up dead on the moon? What sort of rules and laws are in place to prevent unauthorised teleportation? Is it even possible?
How do parents protect babies and toddlers from teleporting to gramma’s house and missing and getting the freeway instead? (Would tying your baby to your body be enough to prevent it? Do kids not develop the ability until puberty? Does science eventually discover a way to prevent it and thus allowing for containing prisoners (how did they do that before? Criminals can’t be jailed, so are they just killed?)
Uh, so I like worldbuilding. You can’t just say “everyone can teleport” without expecting me to think about the whole world actually being able to do that and what it means.
Also, what’s going on with angular momentum in this scenario…? Not to mention the linear momentum? Angular momentum, in particular, is a conserved quality. It’s not going to just kind of vanish, any more than gravity would. Teleport off the planet to a spot on the moon, and in about half a second (less, actually…) that spot on the moon is not going to be in the same relationship to wherever you teleported from on Earth. (Same with teleporting into deep water, for different scales of “not the same relationship.”) I’d reeeeeallly want to hear how anybody ever managed to get back to breathe that single word.
…I may be a fantasist, but sometimes a little rigor’s necessary, y’know? If the worldbuilder can come up with an explanation for “getting back” that holds water (or even allows the water to be carried in a sieve for short distances…) then I’m in. :)
